Page 207 - Student: dazed And Confused

'No matter how creative your set-up with feral pigs, cannibals,
and demon dust-bunnies from outer space, a situation is not
dire unless the audience is rooting for your protagonist.'
(Deneen, 2007, p215)

Nobody will exit a cinema remembering a horror film, no matter how gory or edgy, if there
were no characters to identify with. Horror films are moving away from the 90s and 00s

convention of a group of teenagers and towards the use of troubled families to show and

tell their stories (Mirrors, the Haunting in Connecticut). Such a tool is not new. The Exorcist

(1973) is possibly the most famous of the 70s 'devil-child' horrors. It features a young girl
and mother. Children are often used to intensify the raping of innocence.

Social uncertainties in the 1970s meant that the family unit was always at the heart of films

of this era. Young women were growing in independence so Chris MacNeil had her own job

house and was a single parent to her daughter. Children were being encouraged to be

children and this instantly provides a point of recognition. Dated as the film may be, the
public will always care about well-rounded characters who they could easily meet down the

street.

Reagan - the child - begins showing signs of mental illness and is taken to a hospital for

tests. But the problems grow and develop into a full possession. She swears, masturbates

with a cross and commits murder. Normal children have no business performing these acts
but audiences everywhere were morbidly engrossed by them. Reagan, her mother, their

staff and friends, even the titular character Father Karras are written with enough depth as

to make audiences truly shocked when bad things happen. The characters in any horror film

are invariably damaged in some way when we first meet them (Father Karras is struggling to
keep his faith and Chris is working hard to protect the daughter she is raising alone) but this

is not enough. Horror fans want to see how far these people can be pushed before they

break. No-one can resist a blood and guts horror, of which The Exorcist has plenty, but

equally, people seem to love the human stories of relatable characters being thrown into a
dark underworld.

'Thus, your villain must be... unique. You want the 'Wow ! Now
that's a villain ! ' response. Consider recent examples that